General Baptists Research Articles

Seventeenth-Century General Baptist Identity: A Response to Matthew C. Bingham

ABSTRACT Matthew C. Bingham’s recent scholarship represents an essential revision of traditional Baptist historiography. Bingham’s account of early Baptists challenges the existence of any coherent General Baptists movement until late into the seventeenth century. He claims no interaction between Particular and General Baptists and no continuity between one generation of General Baptists to the next. After a survey of the relevant recent scholarship, this essay explores Bingham’s assertions about seventeenth-century General Baptists. Upon further evaluation, it is demonstrated that these claims are overstated. Bingham is appreciated for his willingness to challenge anachronistic denominational history, but his conclusions regarding General Baptists fall short.

John Clifford, (1836–1923): Liberal, Socialist, Free Churchman, Companion of Honour

ABSTRACT This paper provides background and context for a day conference marking the centenary of the death of the Revd John Clifford, a leading British Baptist minister of the late 19th and early 20th century. Brought up in a working class home on the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire border, Clifford was trained at the Leicester General Baptist College, and spent his entire ministry at Praed Street/Westbourne Park Baptist Church in West London. There he studied at the University of London, gaining outstanding results in several Bachelor's degrees. He campaigned successfully to bring the Baptist Union and the New Connexion of General Baptists together in 1891. As President of the Baptist Union in 1888–89, he was involved in the Union's handling of the 'Downgrade Controversy' that had led to the withdrawal of C.H. Spurgeon (who remained a friend) from the Baptist Union, but did not secure his return. The later part of his career was dominated by the Education controversy, particularly in the passive resistance campaign in which many nonconformists refused to pay their education rate under the 1902 Education Act.

Evaluating a neglected tradition of (Ana)baptist Christology

AbstractOosterbaan identified a tradition of Anabaptist christology running from Ziegler in Strassborg in the 1520s to Menno Simons in the 1550s. I demonstrate that this tradition continued until at least around 1700, first amongst the Waterlander Mennonites in the Netherlands, and then amongst the English General Baptists. I sketch the development and diversity of the tradition, and then ask whether it might be considered ‘orthodox’, and whether reflecting on the scholarly reception of this tradition might help academic theologians to engage better with marginalised Christian communities today.

Radical Religion and Laudian Rites: Baptists and the Imposition of Hands in Revolutionary England

AbstractThis article argues that the radical religious movements emerging during the English Revolution were indebted to a wider range of influences than is commonly assumed. This overarching argument is advanced through a close examination of a specific religious rite practiced by English General Baptists during the 1640s and 1650s: during this period, many General Baptists began to lay hands upon newly baptized converts as an initiatory liturgical rite. While this phenomenon has been widely noted, the full significance of the practice has not been fully appreciated due to both a failure of scholars to adequately locate the rite within a broader historical and theological context and a cluster of interpretive errors that have persisted throughout the literature. Though commonly interpreted as an example of radical puritanism, the Baptist imposition of hands is better understood as a radical reappropriation of confirmation as practiced in the Church of England, and more specifically, a reinterpretation of confirmation as it was pioneered by Laudian divines during the 1630s. By illuminating ways in which the General Baptist practice of laying on of hands echoed a High Church Laudian sacramentalism typically not associated with religious radicalism, this article broadens understanding of the provenance of radical religious ideology during the mid-seventeenth century and further evidences the dizzying theological eclecticism of the period.

The Salters’ Hall Controversy: Heresy, Subscription, or Both?

Abstract The Salters’ Hall controversy (1719) was a watershed event in the history of English Dissent. Some historians have interpreted the controversy as an early sign of the theological demise of the English General Baptists and the English Presbyterians. Conversely, the controversy has also been used to demonstrate the theological steadfastness of the English Particular Baptists and Congregationalist in the eighteenth century. Yet some of the earliest accounts of the Salters’ Hall controversy maintain that the controversy was not about the doctrine of the Trinity, but rather the requirement of subscription to extrabiblical words and phrases. This was the view of the revered divine Edmund Calamy, who refused to be involved in the controversy, even at the potential expense of his reputation. Edward Wallin, a Particular Baptist subscriber at Salters’ Hall, held a similar view of the controversy. While some historians acknowledge these accounts, they seem to ultimately doubt their truthfulness. This hesitancy is likely due, in part, to the fact that there were a few anti-Trinitarians among the nonsubscribers at Salters’ Hall. Furthermore, the English General Baptists and the English Presbyterians did deviate from theological orthodoxy later in the century. However, those who question the motives of the Non-subscribers at Salters’ Hall fail to take into account a theologically orthodox, nonsubscribing tradition among the English General Baptists and the English Presbyterians found in the writings of Thomas Grantham and Richard Baxter. In sum, one’s orthodoxy at Salters’ Hall cannot be determined solely on the basis of one’s view of subscription.

Denominational Differences in Australia: State Support and the "Church Acts"

Denominational Differences in Australia:State Support and the "Church Acts" Joanna Cruickshank (bio) Christian denominations arrived in the lands now known as Australia in 1788, as part of the British invasion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander territories. Over the following century, as six British colonies were established on the continent, many of the cultural forms, institutional structures, and rivalries of British denominations were reproduced. Until the twentieth century, the major Australian denominations imported most of their clergy, hymns, liturgies, books, and theological debates from Britain. Divisions between High, Low, and Broad Church Anglicans; between Wesleyan Methodists and the breakaway Methodist denominations; between Irish, English, and European Roman Catholics; between Particular and General Baptists; and between the Church of Scotland and Free Presbyterians were all faithfully reproduced in the Australian denominations. Yet even as British denominational cultures were transplanted, they were also shaped by the new context of the colonies. On 26 January 1788, Captain Arthur Phillip, commandant of the First Fleet, proclaimed the establishment of the colony of New South Wales and took an oath to uphold the Protestant succession. The Church of England was thus acknowledged as the Established Church within the colony of New South Wales, and for several decades, it faced little competition. The first Methodist minister, Samuel Leigh, did not arrive in New South Wales until 1815, when he received a frosty reception from the governor (O'Brien 56). [End Page 183] A Presbyterian church was not built on Australian soil until 1830. A Catholic priest, sent to the colony as a convict, was permitted to hold mass in 1803–04, but this permission was revoked after Irish convicts used his services to plan a revolt. Catholic priests would not be permitted to minister again in New South Wales until the 1820s. This delay created space for strong traditions of lay independence and leadership to develop in Australian Catholicism (Breward 69–70). In spite of the official support given to the Church of England, the conditions of colonial society created challenges for Anglican dominance. With a desperate shortage of clergy, the mostly evangelical Church of England clergy were open to co-operation with like-minded Nonconformists. In addition, in the first half of the nineteenth century, increasing numbers of Roman Catholic and Nonconformist clergy and other free settlers arrived, many of whom actively opposed the established status of the Church of England (Carey 339–40). These settlers found support from Governor Richard Bourke, who arrived in the colony of New South Wales in 1831. Bourke, an Irishman and a liberal Anglican, was alert to the dangers of sectarianism. By the 1830s, at least a fifth of the settler population was Roman Catholic, and Bourke became convinced that if the government continued to exclusively support the Church of England, sectarianism would flourish. Bourke's solution was to propose legislation to "authorize the issue from the Revenue of the said Colony of sums to be supplied in aid of the building of Churches and Chapels and of the maintenance of Ministers of Religion" ("Bourke Church Act" [1836]). Similar acts were passed shortly afterwards in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) and Western Australia. In South Australia, the so-called Paradise of Dissent, where half the population were adherents of Nonconformist denominations, denominations were also given access to government funds for church building and ministerial salaries (Cruickshank 298). Throughout the colonies, government funds supported significant growth in the four largest denominations, with extensive church-building programs and clergy recruitment in the following three decades. Within the churches, the question of state aid was a divisive issue, reflecting the different ways in which particular denominations understood the relationship between church and state. William Grant Broughton, first Bishop of Australia and a High Churchman, fought fiercely against the passing of the Church Act while he was still the archdeacon of New South Wales (Cable 1966). He feared not only the loss of status by the Church of England but the growing influence of the Roman Catholic clergy, buoyed by the Relief Act and by financial support from the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. Other denominations took a variety of positions in relation to government funding. Baptists and Congregationalists...

General Baptist Origins and Original Sin

ABSTRACTWhether John Smyth and the General Baptists emerged out of the Anabaptist or English Separatist movement remains a subject of debate. One understudied point in this debate is Smyth’s developing thought on the subject of Original Sin. Careful study of Smyth’s writings reveals that he adhered to a traditional, Augustinian, understanding of Original Sin until after he founded the first Baptist Church. Once this church was founded, his views shifted in a distinctly Anabaptist direction, not a merely Arminian one. This adds another important data point in favour of the English Separatist theory of Baptist origins.

Arianism in English Nonconformity, 1700-1750

Abstract During the time of English Nonconformity, Arianism was not only embraced, but openly acknowledged by most of the Presbyterian ministers. That generation of ministers, who contended so zealously for the orthodox faith, had finished their labours, and received from their Lord a dismissal into eternal rest. Those champions among the laity who, at the beginning of the controversy, stood up so firmly for the truth, had entered as well into the joy of their Lord. Though their children continued Dissenters, too many of them did not possess the same sentiments or spirit. Among those who succeeded these ministers were too many who embraced the Arian creed. To this unhappy change contributed the example and conversation as well of many from the younger Presbyterian ministers. In consequence Arianism spread far and wide in the Presbyterian congregations, both among the ministers and the people. This unhappy controversy proved the grave of the Presbyterian congregations, and of those of the General Baptists. The effects of Arianism, though at first scarcely visible, gradually produced desolation and death.

English radical religion and the invention of the General Baptists, 1609–1660

ABSTRACTAs the English church splintered during the mid-seventeenth century, the resultant religious diversity overwhelmed contemporary observers, who struggled to make sense of rapidly advancing theological, political, and cultural changes. This religious chaos has, in turn, produced a similar sense of disorientation among scholars attempting to understand it, and questions of how to best categorise radical religion have generated intense controversy. One of the most important, but perhaps most misunderstood, of these emerging religious expressions were the so-called General Baptists. This article reassesses the utility and coherence of “General Baptist” as an overarching conceptual category to describe historical actors between 1609 and 1660. Historians have traditionally applied this label to any religious dissenters who both rejected paedobaptism and embraced Arminian soteriology. This standard interpretation, however, is misleading and cannot account for the historical record. As the present article demonstrates, the label “General Baptist” had no coherent, stable historical referent during the first half of the seventeenth century.

Dan Taylor and the Old General Baptists

ABSTRACTDan Taylor helped to found the New Connexion of General Baptists. He strongly disagreed with the Old General Baptists on some key theological issues. And yet the New Connexion maintained links with the General Assembly for many years, and the two bodies discussed reunion several times. This paper seeks to explore this relationship which continued until Taylor withdrew from the General Assembly.

Dan Taylor: A Baptist Entrepreneur

This article examines the evangelicalism of Dan Taylor, a leading eighteenth-century General Baptist minister and founder of the New Connexion of General Baptists. In particular, it focuses on how Taylor functioned as a practical innovator, pioneering church planter, mobilizer of laity, novel proponent, and innovative trainer. The nature of Taylor's evangelicalism makes a contribution to the recent debates regarding the origins of evangelicalism. Its central characteristics, underlying tendencies and shaping influence of certain Enlightenment values reflect that which was distinct about evangelicalism as a primarily eighteenth-century phenomenon.

Matthew Caffyn Revisited: Cooperation, Christology, and Controversy in the Life of an Influential Seventeenth-Century Baptist

Matthew Caffyn (1628–1714) is most prominently remembered as a divisive personality who spread unorthodox beliefs about the Trinity and person of Christ among seventeenth-century General Baptists, eventually causing a denominational schism in 1696. However, these memorable features of Caffyn's career do not adequately characterize his place in Baptist history. Important details regarding the doctrinal controversies surrounding Matthew Caffyn have been inadequately treated in the secondary literature, largely because Baptist historians have overlooked Caffyn's early years of involvement in the General Baptist community. I trace the origins and development of Caffyn's doctrinal disputes, focussing particularly on the progression from Caffyn's initial cooperation with other General Baptist leaders to his later controversies with the same ministers. Finally, I demonstrate that Matthew Caffyn was a well-connected, influential minister, especially in Kent and Sussex, and that he remained so even as he became an increasingly polarizing figure on the national stage.

A Note Concerning the Text, Editions, and Authorship of The 1660 Standard Confession of the General Baptists

The, hitherto anonymous, Confession prepared by a General Baptist assembly in London in 1660 became the ‘Standard Confession’ of the denomination following its adoption at the General Assembly of 1663; re-issued by Thomas Grantham in 1678, and re-affirmed repeatedly by the General Assembly through the 1690s, it is unquestionably the most significant symbolic document of the English General Baptists. I argue on the basis of textual evidence that the standard editorial history is wrong: there were two editions in 1660, but no new edition in 1663. I further argue that there is good reason to assume that the authors of the Confession were Matthew Caffyn, Joseph Wright, and John Parsons, senior.

William Allt: General Baptist Hero or Heretic?

Although William Allt appears in regional and national Baptist histories, it is as one whose early promise was quickly ruined by vying for leadership and by being suspected of heretical views. The congregations he formed were mostly in Leicestershire and called themselves General Baptists; it was others who called them Antinomians. His churches died out by 1860. This article gathers such evidence as there is of a tiny Baptist brand with its opportunities and failures.

Richard Foulkes Griffiths, 1850–1901: Political Dissenter

Emboldened by changes in society and the political order during the nineteenth century, many Nonconformists, including some ministers, enthusiastically embraced the opportunities offered, campaigning for favoured candidates and hosting political meetings. A few attempted to move beyond this, moving from the pulpit to the political platform with the aim of entering parliament. This study seeks to use the career of one such figure, Baptist minister Richard Foulkes Griffiths, as a means of shedding light on the formation of a Political Dissenter, his career progression, entry to the ministry, ministerial life, exit from the ministry, and the failure of his efforts to enter parliament. The stereotypical image of ‘political dissent’ as a monolithic entity is challenged, and the role of denominational rivalry in politics explored. Light, too, is shed on the key role Griffiths played in the Union of New Connexion of General Baptists and the Baptist Union.

THE GENERAL BAPTISTS AND THE LEVELLERS

This article examines the links between Levellers and General Baptists during the English Civil Wars of the 1640s and suggests that the political liberty proposed by the Levellers was partly derived from General Baptist ecclesiology and soteriology. Mason engages with Stephen Wright’s account in respect of the alleged Calvinism of Thomas Lambe, the soap-boiler. The relation of both Levellers and General Baptists to Puritanism is discussed, arguing that it is incorrect to describe either group as Puritans.

“And All the Baptists in Kentucky Took the Name United Baptists ”: The Union of the Separate and Regular Baptists of Kentucky

“And All the Baptists in Kentucky Took the Name United Baptists”: The Union of the Separate and Regular Baptists of Kentucky Keith Harper (bio) The summer of 1801 found Kentuckians in a season of unprecedented religious fervor. Led by men like James (“Preaching Jim”) McGready, the fire of the Great Revival spread quickly throughout the commonwealth. Scores of anxious Kentuckians left their fields, shops, and homes to mind their spiritual estates. Some estimate that the famous Cane Ridge Revival alone drew in an excess of twenty thousand souls as the revivals claimed converts by the hundreds. It was, as Paul Conkin describes it, “America’s Pentecost.”1 Amidst the furor of the revival, the Separate and Regular Baptists of Kentucky agreed to lay aside their differences and became “United Baptists.” At first glance, this union appears to be a natural fit. After all, both groups shared many of the same theological perspectives as well as a common polity, or way of conducting church business. [End Page 3] Both believed the Bible to be completely true. Both baptized new believers by immersion. Both believed in local-church autonomy. Both hired their own ministers and managed their own resources. Upon finalizing their union, Kentucky Baptist historian J. H. Spencer noted that “the distinguishing appellatives, ‘Regular’ and ‘Separate’ were dropped, and all the Baptists in Kentucky took the name United Baptists.”2 Theological similarities notwithstanding, achieving unity among early-national Baptists was neither as natural nor easy as one might assume. The issues bearing on union between Regular and Separate Baptists are complex and open to further inquiry along numerous lines.3 For Kentucky Baptists, the actual process by which they achieved their union is a compelling story in its own right. In fact, the Union of 1801 actually constituted the fourth attempt to bring these two groups together since 1785. Offering a plausible explanation for how they finally achieved union is not easy, but it is clear that between 1785 and 1801 most Kentucky Baptists wanted some sort of union. Ultimately, they achieved it, thanks to a combination of trusted leadership, precedent, and their many similarities. Furthermore, the union between Kentucky Baptists meant more than surrendering their “Separate” and “Regular” identities. As both parties modified their respective theologies, they created a doctrinal consensus that facilitated mutual recognition and allowed for cooperation between the two groups. Beyond mere religious fraternity, the Union of 1801 indicates that the Kentucky Baptists of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries were determined to frame any such fellowship around carefully articulated theological parameters. [End Page 4] Baptists in Colonial America Baptists became a regular feature of the American religious landscape in the early-seventeenth century. Not surprisingly, early American Baptists resembled their British brethren. There existed three main groups. The General Baptists held to an Arminian theology characterized by the belief that Christ died for all, without exception. The Particular Baptists held to a Calvinistic theology and preached that Christ died only for the elect, whom God chose before creation. The Seventh-Day Baptists maintained that Christians should worship on Saturday, not Sunday. Most Baptists maintained local-church independence but remained connected through “associationalism.” Churches formed associations for mutual fellowship, edification, and preservation of doctrinal integrity. They provided a forum whereby attendees might discuss current events and debate theological issues. Associations also conducted a limited amount of business, and their decisions, though not binding, carried considerable weight.4 Over time, the Philadelphia Association became especially prominent. Organized in 1707, this association introduced a measure of stability and organization among American Calvinistic Baptists by supplying preachers to churches which had no ministers and sending itinerants into areas with no churches. Before long, the association had extended its influence far beyond the Philadelphia area with the Philadelphia Confession of Faith (1742), which mirrored the Second London Confession (1689), except in affirming the “laying on of hands” and hymn singing.5 By the middle of the seventeenth century, the colonies began to experience a wave of revivals. Established ministers disdained and discouraged “revival exercises” in which converts wept, writhed, and [End Page 5] swerved from despair to spiritual ecstasy. Not surprisingly, many Christians, especially the new converts (New Lights), favored...

‘WE BELIEVE WITH THE HEART AND WITH THE MOUTH CONFESS’

The earliest generation of Baptists, known today as General Baptists, manifested an ‘engaged piety’, shown in the Christian’s inward personal engagement with God in salvation and outward engagement with the church and the world.

Baptist theology: a four-century study

This title offers a comprehensive analysis of Baptist theology. Embracing in one common trajectory the major Baptist confessions of faith, the major Baptist theologians, and the principal Baptist theological movements and controversies, this book spans four centuries of Baptist doctrinal history. Acknowledging first the pre-1609 roots (patristic, medieval, and Reformational) of Baptist theology, it examines the Arminian versus Calvinist issues that were first expressed by the General Baptists and the Particular Baptists; that dominated English and American Baptist theology during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries from Helwys and Smyth and from Bunyan and Kiffin to Gill, Fuller, Backus, and Boyce; and, that were quickened by the 'awakenings' and the missionary movement. Concurrently there were the Baptist defense of the Baptist distinctives vis-a-vis the pedobaptist world and the unfolding of a strong Baptist confessional tradition. Then during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the liberal versus evangelical issues became dominant with Hovey, Strong, Rauschenbusch, and Henry in the North and Mullins, Conner, Hobbs, and Criswell in the South even as a distinctive Baptist Landmarkism developed, the discipline of biblical theology was practiced and a structured ecumenism was pursued. Missiology both impacted Baptist theology and took it to all the continents, where it became increasingly indigenous. Conscious that Baptists belong to the free churches and to the believers' churches, a new generation of Baptist theologians at the advent of the twenty-first century appears somewhat more Calvinist than Arminian and decidedly more evangelical than liberal.

Baptist Alignments and the Restoration Of Immersion, 1638-44 - Part 2

This completes the paper begun in January 2004, seeking to re-interpret the account transcribed by Benjamin Stinton of the origins of the Calvinistic Baptists. Before 1644 there existed alignments which, though more fluid and more provisional than those later established, did amount to a recognizable pattern based upon divisions not over theology but rather over the proper means of church formation; and that this temporary pattern of inter-congregational allegiance cut across, and is to be contrasted with the familiar later bipolar division into General and Particular Baptists.